8 AM, September 30th, 1894

Ezra,

I despise living with the ghost of you. Your presence hangs over everything and I'd obliviate myself if I wasn't so bloody terrified of living a life without you..

Rosie

Her handwriting is distinctly messier than normal. There are smudges every so often and the corner of the parchment looks as though it'd gotten wet and has since dried.

  

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stunning set by Lady <3

8 AM, October 5th, 1894

Ezra,

I'm sorry. I don't know if I ever said it directly, I don't think it matters that I'm saying it now.

It would have been a dream to be your wife.

I —

  

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stunning set by Lady <3

Rosie,

It doesn't change anything, to say it now.

Ezra

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October 5th, 1894

Ezra,

I know.

I'm sorry anyway.

Rosie

  

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stunning set by Lady <3

He wrote the response, but didn't send it. He left it on his desk at home in his bedroom like a trap for himself, something to catch sight of every few days which could twist his insides. He put it in the wastebasket once; fished it out again later. Rewrote it on paper that wasn't crumpled. Eventually, nearly a month later and on a day where he'd been plagued by shadows even before the sun came up, he sent it.

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Rosalie,

It wasn't your fault. It was mine. I should have known better than to fall in love. It was only ever selfish. You deserve to move on.

That's why we don't talk.

Ezra

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When the weeks had come and gone without a response, Rosalie had taken the silence for what it was: a rejection. Her apology was too little, too late, her mistakes too severe for any sort of reconciliation. Rosalie had known this before sending the first letter, and yet the silence stung more than she cared to admit.

His response finally came on one of Rosalie's few good days. Her patients had all responded as expected to their treatments, no one had died, her aunt had allowed her to slip away from the table without any conversations about marriage. It was a good day.

And then it wasn't.

She sat with his letter at her desk for three hours before her hands steadied enough to consider drafting a reply. This was her fault too, she'd realized as the hours slipped by. His belief that love was inherently selfish, that what they had was a mistake. The idea caused her stomach to roll violently enough that she was sick into the wastebasket.

She'd tried to move on, had even gone as far as foregoing emotional connections entirely if only to forget the feel of his hands on her skin, and none of it had worked. How could that be a mistake? How could that love, that connection, that feeling be anything but right?

Finally, nearly three days later, Rosalie finally managed a reply.

Ezra,

I tried to move on, it doesn't work that way. Love like the one we used to share doesn't just vanish.

I don't expect it ever will.

I know nothing has or will change regarding us, but if you ever need or want to talk -

Rosie

  

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stunning set by Lady <3